Archive for August, 2010

A Refund from my Overfunded Escrow Account

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As I wrote in an earlier post, I use QuickBooks to organize my household finances.  Like every good accountant, I am detail oriented and keep meticulous records.  I keep every receipt, reconcile each of my accounts monthly, and split the expense categorization of grocery bills between food, cleaning and baby products (OK, just kidding on the last one). One transaction that I do split out every month is my mortgage payment.  My mortgage payments are made up of three parts: loan principal, interest, and escrow.  In case you don’t know what an escrow account is, it’s a cash account that the lender holds and maintains to pay property taxes and hazard insurance. To keep track of my escrow account balance, I created an account in QuickBooks for it under other current assets.  When taxes and insurance payments are made by the bank, I enter those in QuickBooks as expenses out of the escrow account.  I frequently tie out my escrow account balance in QuickBooks to the loan statements. Lenders usually do an escrow analysis every year to adjust the amount of the escrow payment so the balance in the account is sufficient to cover the expenses.  Usually, the amount of the mortgage payment goes up as tax and insurance rates increase.  However, in my case, I significantly decreased my insurance payments (a good subject for another blog post) and my property tax payments have also decreased due to the crash of the Las Vegas real estate market. Recently, I noticed that my escrow account had a large balance despite barely having made payments for taxes and insurance.  I sent the following e-mail to the bank:
I think our escrow account is overfunded. I’d like to request an analysis and receive a refund of any overfunded amount.
The next morning, I was delighted to receive the following e-mail from the bank:
Per your request, we have analyzed your escrow account based on the current escrow balance. Your new mortgage payment is $X effective September 01, 2010. Also, an overage amount of $X has been mailed to your mailing address.
Sometimes having organized financial records pays off.  I’ve got the check to prove it.
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My LinkedIn Connection Dilemma

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I have a little debate going on in my head about who should be included in my LinkedIn network. LinkedIn seems to suggest that connections should represent a “real-world” network and be limited to trusted friends and colleagues.  I have discovered, though, that some people are looking to connect to everybody.  Some even go so far as to have LION (LinkedIn Open Networker) or “I accept all invites” in their headlines. I have received several invitations to connect from people I don’t know with the standard message ,”I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”  I haven’t accepted them.  Are these people really interested in connecting with me?  If they are, why don’t they call me to introduce themselves, invite me out to lunch, or at least send me a personalized message? I think that most LIONs are just seeking as many connections as possible without the intent of getting to know them.  What is their motivation?  I can think of a few advantages of being an open networker:
  • On the surface, they appear to be really popular – most have 500+ connections.
  • Their news feed (status updates, blog posts, etc.) is broadcast to a large number of people.
  • They are more likely to rank higher in search results as a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level connection.
Those advantages may sound great, but are they really beneficial?  I doubt it.  Their LinkedIn networks are made up of a bunch of useless connections. I am not an open networker on LinkedIn, but  I am open to networking and meeting new people.  I just don’t think that extending an invitation to connect on LinkedIn should be the first step in the process. Then again, sometimes I wonder if I am missing out on potential business opportunities by not connecting to everyone on LinkedIn.  The little devil on my left shoulder makes a tempting argument, but I’m siding with the little angel on my right shoulder.
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My Plot to Take Over Google Searches for my Name

Many villains in TV shows and movies have evil plans to take over the world.  I have a much more attainable goal: take over the first page of Google when my name is searched for! *insert maniacal laughter here*

Google me!

I thought it would be a good idea to “take over” Google when I read this blog post in the Harvard Business Review: Forget the business card – just Google me.  I love the business card in that blog post (which just shows a Google search box with the person’s name). A side benefit of this blog – although I didn’t create it solely for this purpose – is people being able to find me through my blog when searching for me on the Internet.  I recently Googled my name and found my blog in the first position among the search results (see below).  I used a few simple search engine optomization strategies to accomplish this.  My domain name includes my first and last name, my name is in the title tag of the blog, and the “about me” page is written in third person (even though it would have been more natural to write it in first person).

Google Results for Dustin Wheeler

Another strategy I recently began to implement is commenting on other people’s blogs.  The main reason why I comment on blogs is to add value to them, but search engine optimization is a side benefit.  The Google indexing robot finds my name and a link to my blog in each comment. Now that I have a presence for my name in Google searches, I can finally think about getting one of those fancy Google business cards … and ponder another devious plan.